518 Mr W. H. Keating’s Account of' a New Mmei'al 
beautiful and eligible spots for the working of iron, offers a 
striking example of the failures which attend all works, which 
are nor conducted with a sufficient degree of attention to scienti- 
fic acquirements. Placed in the centre of an extensive forest, 
with an abundant supply of water, surrounded by numerous 
and inexhaustible beds of ore, at a convenient distance from two 
good markets, the Franklin works must have appeared to their 
first owners calculated to become of the highest importance ; 
and such most undoubtedly would have been the result, but for 
one difficulty which intervened, arrested the operation, and, after 
many fruitless attempts, caused the total abandonment of the 
works. This difficulty was, it is true, of vital importance. It 
arose from ignorance as to the nature of the ore intended to be 
worked, and of the minerals which accompany it. Having long 
attempted to work by the common process, an ore which was of 
a distinct nature, and which, consequently, required a distinct 
mode of treatment, they at last threw up in disgust an under- 
taking which very little science would have made highly pro- 
ductive. To the late Dr Bruce, we are indebted for the first 
light thrown upon this interesting section of our country, and to 
him the honour of the discovery of the red zinc ore. is due. 
This was, undoubtedly, the first step toward the advancement 
of that section of the country. The next, and a more import- 
ant one, was the determination of the real nature of the sub- 
stance, which had hitherto been considered as a common iron 
ore, and which is now known under the name of Frank- 
linite, as a combination of the oxides of iron, zinc, and manganese. 
This discovery was made in the laboratory of the Boyal School 
of Mines in Paris, in the spring of 1819, and has been publish- 
ed by Professor Berthier, in the fourth volume of the “ An- 
nales des Mines,” 1819. 
Having, in the month of August last, visited this spot with 
my friend Lardner Vanuxem, Esq. of the South Carolina Col- 
lege, our attention was directed with peculiar pleasure to a bed 
of ore, which offered a number of new and interesting varieties 
of minerals, and which we think bids fair to become as celebrat- 
ed in mineralogy as the localities of Uto or Arendal. 
It is not my object at present to enter into an enumeration of 
